Got back into Dome City Blues, and it's turned out to be quite an engaging detective story. It takes some dystopian paranoia and cyberpunk in the style of William Gibson and Philip K. D!ck, and blends it with old-fashioned hard-boiled private eye fiction. Retired P.I. David Stalin is pulled back into the business by a beautiful blonde who insists her brother was framed for murder. Thing is, her brother confessed on video to a string of brutal killings, describing them in detail, then blew his brains out.

It takes a while for the story to get going, but it actually does pay off.

It's interesting how the story sometimes seems predictable, but always has more questions to be answered. It's pretty easy for the reader to figure out how the killer did it, but then you still don't know who did it or why. Then when the who seems very clear, the why remains unclear. Add to that the growing sense that there is more than just murder going on, and bits of subplot that start to seem more important as the story progresses.

I'm about 85% of the way through the book, and it appears things are just about to come to a head.

From "You Betcha!" Land. One of the characters in the book even says: "You Betcha!"

One can understand why Swedes settled in that part of America, when they first came to America. The land and weather must have reminded them of their old home in Sweden.

The highlight of the book is not the mystery, but the more than a score of recipes in the book. Mostly cookie recipes, but there are other recipes as well.

With an average of 23 recipes per book, I thought the authoress ought to publish a cookbook, and she has.

Margaret Coel's "The Spider's Web" 15th in the (Wind River mystery series)

Almost every character in the book has been damaged in some way or the other. From the Irish-American priest who once had problems with the bottle to the Native American lawyer who once had problems with her ex-husband. Some of the damage being self-inflicted, and some of the damage being inflicted by others.

While there could be a great number of villains in the story, the authoress has such empathy for her "walking wounded," there are only one or two "true" villains in the story.

Finished Relentless by Dean Koontz. I did enjoy it even though it was one of his most far fetched plots, but the ending was terrible. Completely absurd, rushed and a total let down. Has by no means put me off the guy though, at least his worst stuff is better than a certain Mr. King's passable output these days.

Just started reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's very well written, although I'm nearly 150 pages in and I still have no idea what it's about...

Reading The Hellbound Heart, by Clive Barker. Very good book. I have the added benefit of not having seen the original Hellraiser since the 80s. I get the greater depth of the novel without remembering enough of the movie plot to really spoil anything.

Interesting that Pinhead was not originally written as the leader of the Cenobites, and had a female voice.

Shopgirl, by Steve Martin. This would have been a better read either compressed as a short story or fleshed out to a novel, but as a novella it lacked something. I do think Steve Martin is a genius though.

I just finished Karl Rove's memoir of his years working for George W. Bush, COURAGE AND CONSEQUENCE. It is a well written and fascinating inside look at some pretty consequential years for our country by a man who helped shape public policy during that time. Love Bush or hate him, this book is a good read.

Today a friend gave me the manuscript for the writing portion of a graphic novel he's collaborating on, and it was darn good. They haven't ironed out the title but the plot is about a war on earth between Heaven and Hell, set in the 1960s with some flash-forwards into the 1980s, and the main character is this badass archangel whose violence toward demons on earth isn't particularly angelic. Not a religious work in the slightest, filled with twists and tips of the hat to some influential figures in the GN field, like Gaiman and Moore and McFarlane. I hope they find a publisher, as they did on a less ambitious work of theirs from a couple years ago. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this thing was!

Or the best of British humor from the past 500 years from the 16th century to today.

Did you hear the one about the father who used his teenage son's bum-hole as the family doorbell, because it had a nice ring to it?

When the Brits say something risque it sounds funny. When we Americans say something risque it just sounds embarrassingly unfunny.

When the Brits say something absurd it sounds funny. When we Americans say something absurd it just sounds stupid.

British humor is relatively subtle. It comes at you sideways. American humor is relatively unsubtle. It comes at you straight-on.

Most Brits know that "Brevity is the soul of wit." Most Americans don't.

Alot of Brits like jokes that contain hyperbole, non-sequiteurs, and wordplay. Alot of Americans don't.

Alot of British jokes contain irony, put-downs, satire, and sacrcasm. Alot of American jokes don't.

And that is why Brits are the funniest people on earth, or, at least funnier than most Americans.

One thing did surprise me. The lack of ethnic humor. Except for the people who live in the U.K., the only people who got their own section of jokes were we Americans. Which probably says something good about us. We can take it, but can we dish it out? Probably not, for when it comes to ethnic humor Americans tend to be politer, more sensitive, and less courageous.

When asked why he had asked for a raise, the actor replied: "It is because I can't eat my notices." Who ever knew Claude Rains had a sense of humor.

Read the 6 issues of "Infinity Gauntlet" yesterday, which were great. Now reading "Writing Short Films" by Linda J. Cowgill, which has some interesting things to say, but it generalizes a lot and gives advice that's not necessarily true, in my opinion.

and for the comic book versions, they are the ones set in New Orleans. I'm missing the last issue of that series. (I actually didn't now that at the time, I just picked them up because I like Grendel )

I also picked up some Stephen King novels, the big ones:Dream CatcherInsomniaand another one that slipped my mind.